Archives For September 16, 2012

I had to wake up early for Day 7, not because I had a movie to see, but because I wanted to head down to the festival box office to exchange some of my back-half vouchers for tickets. I went ahead and did that, but then had nothing left to do, so I decided, to throw in an extra screening for the morning.

It’s not always easy choosing a random option at the last minute, especially since many screenings are already “rush line only.” I didn’t have too many screenings to choose from, and ultimately I settled on something with a director I didn’t care for, but a cast I loved. Continue Reading…

Day 6 was a slow day for me. And by slow I mean I only saw two movies. Actually, it was kind of nice to bring it down to just the two. Of course, that doesn’t mean I got any extra sleep or felt any less exhausted, but I suppose it provided a bit of relief after a few more busy days.

Of course, the risks were piling on, even in this day of only two movies. To the Wonder, the new film from Terrence Malick, was already getting some very mixed buzz out of Venice and various press screenings. Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers looked good, but then so did his previous film, Kill List, and I was decidedly unimpressed by that one. Still, I was prepared to jump in, and in fact I was expecting to enjoy both. Click to read more.

Like this:

Going to a film festival involves risk. Specifically, the risk of seeing bad films. It’s going to happen. If you’re doing more than just a few films you can’t avoid it. My first bad film of TIFF’12 was Hellbenders, but I suppose going into that one I knew the risk of badness at Midnight Madness would be higher than normal, and honestly I didn’t go to that film expecting it to be any good.

It’s always more disappointing when you expect a film to be good and it ends up not only disappointing, but being outright terrible. A good example for me would be Tyrannosaur last year. I went in fully expecting to like it, and considering the huge standing ovation the film got i suppose most people felt it delivered. I, on the other hand, hated the film. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t believe the positive reaction the film was garnering around me. But that’s the risk. You can’t enjoy every movie. Sometimes there will be bad ones. Sometimes you will come out of a movie loathing it. That’s what happened to me on Day 5. Click to read more.

Day 4 and already I’m hit with film festival exhaustion. It might sound like an easy thing to do nothing but watch films for several days. I’m here to tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. Films require a kind of mental attention. Watching more than two in a row tires out the mind. Factor in the fact that at a festival as big as TIFF you’re also running all over town, standing in line-ups, getting up early, going to sleep late, and by the end of it you feel like you’re going to collapse.

All that being said, a film festival is a gloriously fun thing. It’s exhausting, but also rewarding. And even when the films themselves aren’t rewarding, the people you meet and hang out with make it all worthwhile. The night before I’d stayed up until 3am finishing off Cloud Atlas so that I’d have read it all before seeing the new film adaptation. It was worth it. Click to read more.

Weather in Toronto is a funny thing. It’s a city with a pretty wide range of climate, and it can often be quite random. For example, while I was nearly dying of heat in line for the American Beauty live read on Thursday, standing in line for Frances Ha on Saturday was a cold, rainy experience. That’s not to say the weather put a damper on the day (it didn’t at all), but it’s one of the factors that makes TIFF a simultaneously fun and frustrating experience. You just never know what you’re going to get day-to-day from the clouds above.

Day 3 was another “take my mom to TIFF” day. Got up reasonably early, ate some breakfast and went down to stand in line outside the Elgin/Winter Garden in the rain. Luckily, we found a spot in line with some cover. Matt Price also showed up at some point, and finally the line let in. Click to read more.